Tapering..

Ewen, I'm not particularly nervous about the 90km ride. It's the 1.9km swim beforehand that has me worried.. :-O

Well the scales keep going down despite the (continued) lack of exercise this month. Though unfortunately I suspect it is simply muscle loss as the amount of exercise I am doing - or the lack thereof - and the amount of stress hormones pacing through my body at the moment won't be helping. This week I feel like I've been living in a constant state of low level anxiety in connection with work. Not good.

Mon: 5am - alarm; 5.30am - gym; 9am - Auburn; 10am - Chullora; 12.30pm - CBD; 3pm - Rhodes; 7pm - Penrith; 7.30pm - Emu Plains (swim squad); 11pm - exhausted & in bed. A return to swim squad after several weeks absence. Given the session was largely structured for those tapering for IM, I asked for, and got, lots of drills. A bit of a breakthrough night for me; a couple of fast 100s with surprisingly little effort & a much improved catch. Happy days :-) 2.5k

Tues - Sat: pilates, otherwise rest & far too much work.

Sun: headed out with R for what is becoming our Sunday morning ritual; a long ride with a visit to Coffee Club by the Nepean River for coffee and (today) a chocolate chip muffin before heading home. It almost ended badly when a stick managed to fly up & jam itself between my wheel & front fork (!). I think my heart stopped there for a minute. But thankfully I was able to stop before it did any damage. Otherwise it was a great way to start the day. Not to mention the great view when drafting ;-P R is looking very fit, strong & ready for the IM next weekend. Turned out to be my longest ride in months; much needed given the lack of exercise this week. 2.16. 54.1k. 23.8k av. 149HR av.

The week ahead will be frantic. R & MiniMango are heading to Port Mac on Thursday. However I have to attend a seminar on Thursday so I'll be heading up on Friday at the earliest or even possibly Saturday depending on work :-(( Aside from a teleconference on Monday, hopefully I won't have to work too much or (even worse) come back early. Fingers crossed, remote access, wireless wifi & a mobile phone will suffice. Privatisations wait for no IM...

MTD:
Swim - 4.5k
Bike - 131.7k